Valve Launches SteamVR Performance Test Tool

Intergalactic Wizard

Posts:3,662

Valve has launched a new tool to see if your computer will be ready for new VR games and content. So before you drop $800 to purchase the HTC Vive, you may want to make sure you'll get the best VR experience.

The test will let you know if your hardware is VR ready, capable, or not ready. Be warned, the requirements for the test requires an Intel® i5-4590 / AMD FX 8350 or greater as well as GeForce GTX 970 or Radeon R9 290 or greater.

Gordon Freeman's Personal Aid

Posts:3,458

Now all I need is a good excuse to spend $800 +tax +S&H for a Vive... Or a Rift. Not sure yet.

Get the Vive. It can do everything the Rift does.
And it comes with rooms scale VR so it's more flexible.
Also it has a front-facing camera which can be used to look around when necessary without taking off the headset (convenient).

G-Man Personal Aid

Posts:1,569

Get the Vive. It can do everything the Rift does.
And it comes with rooms scale VR so it's more flexible.
Also it has a front-facing camera which cam be used to look around when necessary without taking off the headset (convenient).

These are big pros! On the other hand, the Rift has better software support (so far), any many claim it's the more comfortable of the two headsets. There will be lots of changes to the screen and software that drives it up to launch for both headsets, so one could emerge a clear winner in the fidelity area. The Rift's built-in audio is supposed to be pretty robust (and the Vive has none). I also think the Touch ergonomics are more appealing than the Vive's giant wands. And I think room-scale is damn cool, but honestly I probably won't use it much.

Mostly I'm waiting for both to launch so reviews are more widespread and we have all the info. I'm not spending near a grand on a guess!

Gordon Freeman's Personal Aid

Posts:3,458

Gordon Freeman's Personal Aid

Posts:3,458

Not sure you guys noticed but one interesting thing about this sequence is that there are no graphics settings. The source 2 engine is dynamically varying the graphical fidelity in order to target 90fps. i.e. if the previous frame took more than ~11ms to render then it starts dropping the graphics in order to maintain 90fps. The result is less framerate variations but more graphical variations (if your system cannot handle it). This is the opposite of what we usually have (wild framerate variations and fixed graphical target).https://www.reddit.c...rformance_tool/

Also in order to have a closer look at the assets I forced it out of stereoscopic mode and into my native resolution fullscreen (1080p). The textures seem to be very high res and there is a lot of geometry detail in the scene. Still when you take it out of stereoscopy it runs at almost 300fps because it's a small room in a good engine and has been designed to run at high framerate.

Colonel Benefactor

Posts:3,504

Holy that looks pretty fucking nice, Source 4 life. It just looks great without all the over-the-top features like in other state of the art game engines. Like Brumi once said, graphical design > graphics.

Humbug, on 23 February 2016 - 06:47 PM, said:

...in a good engine and has been designed to run at high framerate.

Yeah, CS:GO runs the best at 250fps or higher, when you get lower than 150, you can feel it in your mouse movement. Source runs best at very high fps, also totally no screen tearing at high frames without v-sync, where other engines have terrible screen tearing above 60fps.
60fps limit is just too low for high paced gaming, good thing they let the VR run at 90fps (or maybe higher).

Gordon Freeman's Personal Aid

Posts:3,458

Holy that looks pretty fucking nice, Source 4 life. It just looks great without all the over-the-top features like in other state of the art game engines. Like Brumi once said, graphical design > graphics.

In the screenshots I posted I have intentionally got unusually close-up to stuff in order to scrutinize the graphics. Source 1 stuff doesn't look that detailed when you get into details, at least in my experience, although it can still have overall decent (by 2016 standards) looking maps.

With regard to Source 2; apart from limited snippets like this to truly see what it can do we will have to wait for some new Valve game built on it from the ground up.